282 LIFE WITH THE HAMRAN ARABS. 



ture I awoke only to realise that at last the sun had 

 mastered me, and, suffering from an intense headache, 

 to know that I must pay the penalty of exposure to it. 

 From that time to the present I have been completely 

 prostrated by sunstroke, suffering almost night and 

 day very great pain in the back of the head with great 

 throbbing, and with general nausea ; and, to add to my 

 troubles, there has been much painful swelling of the 

 glands of the neck. The temporary relief obtained by 

 having water poured from a height over the back of my 

 head and neck enabled me to attend to the wants of my 

 sick friends, now two in number, for Hadji Basheer has 

 been attacked with dysentery, and in so grave a form 

 that it is a very doubtful matter if he will ever see 

 Kassala again ; and the rest of the day I have been 

 compelled to lie perfectly quiet under a tree, with my 

 head enveloped in wet cloths, and unable to read or even 

 to write up my diary. From the commencement of my 

 attack I felt sure that relief might be obtained by a 

 loss of blood. But who was to bleed me ? And as day 

 after day passed without any diminution of the bursting 

 sensation in my head, I began to be anxious about the 

 future, until yesterday afternoon, when the happy thought 

 1 Why not bleed yourself ? ' became too strongly im- 

 pressed on my mind to be resisted, and I set to work 

 to carry it into effect. In Vivian's absence, Albert 

 became chief assistant ; whilst Mohamed the cook and 



